quote:Some of you more experienced brewers should do a step by step guide next time you brew. I know I would love to see how to brew some more difficult beers.

In another thread TheOcean requested a picture step-by-step of some all-grain brewing. I decided to give it a go when I brewed today. This is my first time doing one of these picture step-by-step thing. Hopefully it's clear and all the pictures come through.

The goal for this recipe was a French farmhouse ale. I took a biere de garde recipe, tweaked it just a touch, and will use an American farmhouse yest blend. Recipe help came from this book. I highly recommend the book.

Started off heating the mash strike water. I use my stove for this part. Usually the strike water will fit in one pot, but I needed a touch over 18 qts for the mash and had to split it between two pots.

I lost a little over a degree during the mash. I take the cooler outside and begin the vorlauf the wort. Vorlaufing is taking a draw from the mash tun and gently pouring it back over the top of the grain bed. You do this a few times until the grain bed is settled and you get clear wort.

After the mash is drained, I add the sparge water. I did a single sparge today. I try and aim for as close to 170 as I can get, but today I did not do so well. I let this sit for 10 minutes then drain in to the brew kettle.

As you can see, the wort is almost to the top of my kettle. This will pose a problem when the boil starts as the hot break will most certainly boil over. For those that don't brew, when you first start boiling the wort will boil up a great deal and if you are not careful with it the beer will come spilling over the sides and cause a mess. So in comes Fermcaps. Fermcaps are a food-safe additive that prevents boil-overs. Also works during fermentation to prevent explosive fermentation. I love the stuff.

After 90 minutes of boiling I kill the flame. I give the wort a good swirl and let it sit for a minute to whirlpool. What this does is concentrate the particles and protiens in to a cone in the middle of the kettle. As I drain the wort off, most of the junk is left behind in this cone.

So here's where I differ from a lot of brewers. Most brewers will rapidly chill the beer within 10-30 minutes and transfer the beer directly in to the fermentor. The beer is usually chilled with an ice bath, an immersion chiller (essentially a metal coil that is dunked in the kettle and has cold water running through it), a counterflow chiller (A double layered pipe where beer flows one way as cold water flows the other), and a plate chiller.

I don't chill my beer. I started doing this when I started all-grain brewing when I was in my old apartment. As we know in the deep south, groundwater gets hot in the summer. This makes cooling beer hard unless you are able to pre-chill the water in a seperate container before it goes in to the wort chiller. Well my apartment was tiny and I didn't have the space or money for another cooler, chiller, and pump. I had read an article about how, due to water restrictions, Australian brewers in the outback didn't chill their beer. I decided to give it a go.

Instead of quickly chilling and transferring to a fermentor, I drain my kettle in to a food and heat-safe container where it cools at it's own pace overnight. I am essentially canning the wort. I can transfer it to a fermentor at my own pace. I usually brew one day, make a yeast starter the next day, and then start fermentation on the fourth day.

You're cooling time to ferm start is interesting. But if it works, it works. I generally mash one day and boil the next which disturbs some people. It just shows that brewing beer Doesn't have to be some nazi progression.

ETA: I forgot to mention hopping in regards to no-chill. Above I put the hops in at 60 mins and 15 mins, but in actuality it I did it at 50 and 5 minutes. I have found moving the hop schedule back 10 minutes takes care of most of the issues. YMMV.

Pretty cool to see the unique approach of not immediately chilling the beer.

Perhaps more posters could start posting step by step guides (w/ pics) for different recipes and post the end results. And then someone can just start one giant brew thread with a ton of the recipes/pics. Just an idea so all of the info is centralized and not lost.

re: All-Grain Brewing Step-by-Step(Posted by LSUBoo on 1/14/13 at 7:50 am to USAF_Vol)

quote:Also what about checking the ph levels? Some info suggests you do at.

I add the 5.2 PH stabilizer... something like a tablespoon per 5 gallons of strike water.

Regarding chilling, I have a wort chiller now but I've done the overnight chill many times in the past when it was too time consuming to chill the entire batch. I'd just transfer to my sanitized fermenter, seal it up and put it in the ferementation fridge. The next day I'd check and if it was down low enough I'd pitch the yeast. Never had any problems with this method either.

re: All-Grain Brewing Step-by-Step(Posted by BugAC on 1/14/13 at 8:37 am to LSUBoo)

quote:I add the 5.2 PH stabilizer... something like a tablespoon per 5 gallons of strike water.

I am in the process of researching pale ales, as i plan on creating my first beer recipe. I was reading a section on water, and they advise PH levels of water to be from 5.2 to 5.8. I believe Baton Rouge water is at 8.8, is this correct?